"I
think the extent of how long this took place going clear back to the
60s is the most shocking this here," said Alachua County Sheriff's
Office PIO Art Forgey.

A year's worth of digging revealed Anna
Elizabeth Young responsible for the torturous abuse and death of
multiple children, the sheriff's office said.

"Witnesses came forward from the House of Prayer alleging brutality and even some children being murdered," Forgey said.

This
week, Young was indicted by a grand jury for the unlawful death of
little Emon Harper, also known as Moses, who deputies say Young was
related to.

But the deputies say they have reason to believe she's been hiding an even darker past.

"It's
not just one isolated incident of beatings. There were numerous
children that were beaten, locked in solitary confinement,
food-withheld," Forgey said.The matriarch of a cult-like boarding
school in Micanopy, Mother Anna was charged with felony child abuse in
1992. Young fled from Florida, but was captured eight years later.

In
2001, she was sentenced to six months and 12 days in jail for bathing a
12-year-old girl in a steel tub with chemicals causing severe chemical
burns.

"This is just the tip of the iceberg that we know of," Forgey said.

Several
people came forward within the last year, police said, to accuse Young
of torturing, punishing, caging, and starving children at the house of
prayer, which authorities are calling the "house of horrors."

"The
arrest is in no means going to close this case, because there is so
much more and so many more potential victims and witnesses," Forgey
said.

Young was arrested in Georgia Thursday night. It's unclear when she will be extradited to Florida.

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